One day, me and my tennis ball were just hangin’ out. We did
that a lot, when Mom was out or at work or something else boring that didn’t
involve me—for ya know, anything that didn’t involve me wasn’t fun. I never saw
a smile on Mom’s face like the one she got when she came home and saw...ME! I
can truthfully say I was the light of her life. No conceit—facts are facts.

So anyhoo, there we were, me an’ my tennis ball. I was
playing with ya, batting ya back and forth between my paws when I...missed. (dropping embarrassed face between paws).
OOPS!

BIG oops! You rolled underneath a cabinet! And I couldn’t
rescue youuuuuuu....... (howling)

I tried everything! I stuck my paw under the cabinet...and
you came a little closer. Then a little
closer still.

I stuck my nose under the cabinet to get you in my teeth. I
tried and tried and tried! I tried so hard that I rubbed all the skin off my
nose!

Monday, December 29, 2014

“Yab-Yum,” we chant as one, all these years later, while around us shadows take shape and voice from our shared memory.

Poetry, doggerel, curses, laughs; flashes of brilliance, wine-slurred philosophy; a place and time and voices that live on in millions more minds than ours, yet in memory are still ours alone.

We were wannabe Dharma Bums, jailbait chicks high on the Road, and the Beat, hanging with Kerouac and Cassidy and Ginsburg on the fringes of their world. Tagging along with guys, we were swallowed up, instead, in the urgent mysteries of each other. In dim corners we echoed their game of Yab-Yum, silent, still, close, closer, fighting not to touch while breast swayed nearer to breast, cunt edged toward cunt, nipples ached for tightened nipples. Hunger pulsed hot and slick between damp thighs. Frustration battled willpower.

Blue-hot sparks of longing seared us, need rising in a tide that swept away the will at last, the game well-lost. Our bodies tore at joy with hands and mouths and limbs as fierce in hunger as any savage tooth and claw.

She thought she heard cheers across the pot-smoke clouded room. My ears still rang with glory. As they always will.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Spencer Dryden

He drew one
last present from the beneath the tree. Removing the elegant wrapping revealed
a velvet covered jewel box. Golden rays burst forth like the dawn of hope as he
opened it, transforming his frown to a grin.

“Wow.”

“What is it?”
she asked.

“ It’s a
Gueschtunkina Ray Gun.”

“What!?”

“You didn’t
give it to me?”

“No. What is
it?”

“One shot
instantly renders any woman into a high state of sexual arousal.”

“I certainly
didn’t give that to you.”

“Santa got
my letter then.”

“That is so
stupid,” she huffed. “There's no such thing.”

He turned
the box toward her. She smirked as she lifted the gun from the cradle.

“It’s a gag
gift, right?”

“I hope not.”

“Sure,” she
scoffed. “I’m supposed to shoot myself with it, and then I’ll want to have sex
with you?”

“A little
coitus wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Men! Is
that all you think about?”

She
inspected the gun, then, casually pointed it at her face.

PEEUM

Her sneer
turned to a feral grin, pupils dilated. She slipped from her full length
flannel night gown, laid naked beneath the tree, legs splayed, beckoning him
with longing eyes.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

It feels wrong to rant on Christmas, but I'll have a go for those of you who aren't big on holiday cheer.

Maybe this has happened to you:

You
get a newsletter from a fellow author (assuming you're an author, I
guess) and you ask yourself, "Did I sign up for this person's mailing
list? Nope. I didn't even know they had one. I'm 100% certain I
didn't."

And yet I'm getting this marketing email. Why?

Because
this person is someone I know. A friend or acquaintance, maybe someone I
was in contact with about something or other, an author I helped or
swapped blogs with or offered a guest spot at Donuts and Desires.

And
they signed me up for their mailing list. Without my consent. So now
I'm receiving this email about "yay my new book is out and you should
buy it, blah blah blah."

I'm not complaining about
newsletters. I send out a newsletter... to the 19 people who have
elected to receive it. Nobody else. Just those people. I never have and
never will add a business contact's address to my marketing mailing
list, and to be perfectly honest, I lose A LOT of professional respect
for those who do this to me.

And it's a lot of people! Enough that I'm ranting about it on Christmas.

If
you've been into the eggnog, you're probably going, "Who cares? Just
unsubscribe and get on with your life." And I do unsubscribe, but the
point is that I shouldn't have to. I don't subscribe to ANY mailing
lists with my professional email account (I have other accounts for
that) because it clutters things up. If I haven't elected to receive
your emails, you're spamming me. Dirty word, but there it is.

This
probably sounds especially cruel when some of the people I'm talking
about are people I regard(ed) in a friendly/professional/acquaintancey
way. I feel like I've placed my trust in them and they've betrayed me.

Yes,
I'm queer. Yes, I'm an author with a blog. But I'm not a blogger nor am
I a media outlet. Do I want to receive press releases about every
goddamn sissy weekend in the Poconos? No!

(I'm not saying that flippantly or picking on sissies--I really do get these press releases. Every one of them!)

What's
worse, PR mailing lists get sold off to whoever has the money to buy
them and the PR people sending me PR emails don't use programs that
allow the receiver to unsubscribe. The only way I can *hopefully* get
them to stop emailing me is to contact them directly and say "please
take my address off your list" and risk looking like a dirtbag. I cross
my fingers and hope they'll actually do it, but not ONE PR person has
ever replied.

There's another angle to this whole
passive consent thing I want to cover really quickly (let's hope--we'll
see) and that has to do with television and advertising. This is
something I encounter a lot, living in a big city, and I don't like it.

When
the Oprah Network (OWN) was gearing up to enter the Canadian
marketplace, they set up a couch in the square outside Toronto's City
Hall. I think they were trying to create some CanCon (Canadian
Content), and there was a film crew with an interviewer trying to draw
passersby into a conversation for whatever show they were producing.

I
know this because I happened to be walking through the square when this
was going on. It's not unusual to encounter film crews in Toronto, but
usually if you cut through their shot they yell at you. This was
different. There was a sign that read something to the effect of "by
entering this area you consent to being broadcast on television."

Ummm... NO.

By
walking to CITY HALL on CITY PROPERTY, I consent to appearing on your
show? No. If you ask me, "Do you want to be interviewed?" and I say,
"NO," my words are moot because I've already provided passive consent
simply by walking by.

This is where passive consent
gets scary, to me: when some entity tells me that by the time I've read
your consent form, I've already given my consent.

I
encountered this sort of thing again at the CNE (Canadian National
Exhibition, a big fair that takes place every summer): there was a food
truck alley going on, and one of the food trucks belonged to Hellman's.
They were giving out something, I think for free, I think fries--I don't
know. I didn't go anywhere near the truck BECAUSE there was a sign
(easily missed in a crowd, I might add) that stated by approaching the
truck you are consenting to potentially appearing in their advertising
campaign.

If
you're going to complain about anything on Christmas, it might as well
be this. I'm really tired of the assumptions professionals and
organizations are making about what constitutes consent. Consent is
saying YES. Passive consent is no consent at all.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

The
flowers were beautiful. Every week, on the same day, they arrived, each bouquet
more spectacular than the previous one. The notes were anonymous.

With admiration, the first one read.

You left me breathless, read the second.

Breathless, and wanting more, the third read.

“Wanting
more what?” Brian, his husband asked.

“I have
no idea.” And he really didn’t. Who on earth could be sending him flowers with
these crazy notes? It had to be some kind of joke. An expensive one, but a joke
nevertheless. “I still think it’s you, Bry.”

“You
know I don’t waste my money on that kind of thing.”

Oh, right. He knew that only too well.
Once they wouldn’t have been enough, now they were a waste of money.

After
work next day, he made his once a week stop at the bar with the ‘backroom’
where he could get what he couldn’t at home.

The
mouth that enclosed his cock had a familiar feel to it, the strong strokes from
the vibrant tongue bringing him to the brink with a satisfying rush.

As he
zipped up in the dark room, warm lips touched his earlobe and a husky voice
whispered, “Like the flowers?”

Monday, December 22, 2014

“One hundred five words.” The vibe
inside me comes to life. I squirm in my chair.

He chuckles. “Not good enough, Pet.
Cut some more.”

“Please, Sir – I can’t. Oh...!”

His hand on my shoulder. His warm
breath in my ear. A new electric sunburst between my thighs. “Read
it.”

Her mouth closes around his
substantial cock, but her eyes never leave mine. Her panties stuff my
mouth, choking my moans. Her nylons secure my wrists and ankles to the
dining room chair. And my dick? Swollen beyond possibility of relief
within the leather cage she bought for our anniversary.

She won’t let me come. I’ll
watch the drool run down her chin as she deep throats this stranger.
Later she’ll spread her slick, shaved cunt so that he can hammer
her. She might even take that massive prick up her ass.

Friday, December 19, 2014

As I think I’ve mentioned here before, I am staring at the outline of a book in the genre called “creative non-fiction.” The director of the local university press (at the university where I teach English) wants me to write about censorship in Canada in the 1980s/90s. I sent him an outline for a research-based overview of the subject, but he wants something more personal. He wants me to write about situations I’ve been involved in. At a recent book launch, he asked how my writing was coming, and I could only laugh. (While I’m teaching three large first-year classes? Does he think I’ve learned to live without sleep?) I promised that I would work on this project during the holidays, during my two weeks off from marking essays and nailing student plagiarists.

Conflict over censorship is still a raw subject for me. The anti-porn feminists I knew (and knew of) in the 1980s were honestly appalled by the way many male “sex radicals” depicted women, in words and images, as human toilets, receptacles for men to use. I was queasy about censorship, even then, especially if it were to be imposed by law, but I didn’t believe that being anti-porn meant being anti-sex. Why were so many men angry at women who said no, but disgusted with women who “put out?” What would it take to create a more engaging, sexier discourse on sex?

And then there was the amazing blindness of certain “sex-positive” organizations and businesses (including the few gay/lesbian bookstores in Canada) to racism. In one such store, I saw a series of greeting cards featuring images of fat people who looked androgynous and African, all of whom wore red lipstick, exaggerated expressions, and little else. These cards were clearly intended to be funny. I couldn’t help being reminded of certain male queens who performed on stage as hoochie mamas, or silly little girls, or nagging old biddies, much like white actors in blackface.

When the same store was fire-bombed a few weeks after my visit, the queer press treated this event as a simple expression of homophobia. Bombing any bookstore would not be my style, but I couldn’t help wondering if those explosive devices were meant as a response to being silenced by ridicule.

“Censorship is not the answer” is the slogan of libertarians, and I agree with it in principle. The catch is that being opposed to censorship is sometimes parallel to being opposed to “political correctness,” meaning that ignorance and contempt have to be tolerated as the price of freedom of expression.

“Intersectionality” seems to be the current word for inequality in various forms, all operating simultaneously. Men “of colour” are generally as sexist as white men, but they are genuinely oppressed by racism. Some rich people are not white, and they are capable of class snobbery. Women can be oppressors. So can queers of every gender. A certain local leader of the First Nations community once created an uproar by publicly claiming that Hitler’s massacre of Jews was justified. My Nigerian ex-husband never said that in so many words, but he came dangerously close. (Some folks are clearly blind to historical analogies.)

Wanting to gag an individual or a mob is a logical response to offensive expression. But censorship is the first weapon of any dictatorship, and it doesn’t lead to peace on earth.

These are the issues I will have to wrestle with if I am ever going to write a whole book on this subject, and work on revisions, and see the thing in print, and be regarded as some kind of a published scholar. I would like to be defined that way some time before my death, not that I’m ashamed of being a queer writer of sexually-explicit fiction. But then, shame has a way of sneaking in. Oh, the irony.

One of my colleagues suggested that I apply for a sabbatical leave to work on my book before universities in general abolish the tradition of giving their teaching staff time off for research projects. This could happen, and I’m not getting younger, so I can’t afford to waste time. But putting together a proposal for a sabbatical is a project in itself.

I am still working my way through the last pile of student essays before the deadline. As usual at this time of year, I can hardly see past the next signpost: End of Semester, Christmas, Holiday Get-Togethers, Calls for Submissions, Book Chapters, Yard Maintenance with the New Snow-Blower, Purging of Household Junk, New Classes in January.

I feel as if I can’t afford to spend the time it would take to clarify something called Long-Term Goals. My current life looks like an obstacle course of short-term hurdles, one after another. This might be a good thing. As long as I’m busy, I can’t focus on the possibility that my life is a flurry of movement with no real progress.
--------------

Thursday, December 18, 2014

I remember being 27, married, with the sort of job that could have become a career, going up in the ranks of a volunteer organization I participated in, publishing stories here and there. I thought I could see where this was going. It was time to think about buying a house, having a kid, getting a promotion, taking on more responsibility at that organization, and writing more and better. I believed in goals. If I wrote 1,000 words a day, the following year I wanted to write 1,250 words a day.

Two years later, most of that was gone. I had walked away from the marriage, the job, even the city I'd been living in. I no longer participated in that organization. I still wrote, but not under the name I used to use.

I basically hit the red button on my life. Under that other name, I used to have social media accounts and some growing reputation as an expert about certain things. I had invested in various pursuits, and was reaping the respect that came from that.

The events that led to those changes, combined with everything that's happened since then, have made me a little skeptical about goals.

Here's the question I never asked myself back then: All that more, where does it lead? Do I write 1,250 words, then 1,500, then on and on, until I'm someday writing 400,000 a day? (haha) Obviously, one can be smarter than that about setting one's goals, but for a long time, my only sense about goals was that they were supposed to be "more" and "higher."

I remember calling my mom when I signed my first contract for a book that would go into print. "Great," she said. "Are you going to try to get published somewhere better next time?"

And, philosophical person that I am, I wonder what "better" means.

The only possible answer to that is what's better to me, but that's so hard for me to answer. Going back to that life I used to have: did I want any of those things I thought I was supposed to do?

Years later, with another person, I started trying to have a baby. I'd been told that's what all women want. When I raised doubts about my maternal instincts (I have held a child exactly once in my life, and have to restrain myself from referring to babies with pronouns reserved for inanimate objects), I heard that hormones would fix all that. If I had a baby, I would want it. I would like it. People seemed extremely invested in convincing me that I wanted this even when I didn't think I did. More than that, they seemed extremely invested in issuing dire warnings about how deeply I would regret it if I didn't have a baby. I would wind up old and ugly and alone and very, very sorry. I would see my selfishness and wish I'd had a purpose in my life besides myself.

Anyway, once I started trying to have a baby, I found myself avoiding sex at any cost. And when I thought about that, I began to uncover the key piece of buried information: I absolutely did not want a baby. Believing that I actually wanted one when I didn't think I did was crazymaking — that stuff I'd been told basically asked me to assume I was insane, that I didn't know shit about my actual personality and wants and feelings. The fact that I'd been trying to believe it anyway for years — well, that had done some damage to my ability to know what the hell was going on with me.

Even now, it's hard for me to say that having a baby is not a goal for me. I was hanging out with an otherwise awesome woman not that long ago, but when she asked about children and I told her I didn't want one, she began insisting that I must freeze my eggs for the inevitability that I will regret this decision in a few years. I'm scared of writing what I'm writing now. All I can do is promise that I've given it a lot of thought and I'm sure about what I feel and what I know about the sort of person I am and the things I want to do with my life.

Goals — real goals that are true to me — are hard because it's hard for me to know what's true to me. A lot of things fell along with the baby goal, most notably my sense of my sexuality (A painful discussion that I've been revealing here in bits. What I'll say about it now is that it's another place where people seemed to feel free to tell me what my sexuality ought to be. I listened to them too much and for too long.).

I'm a bit ashamed of saying I'm so susceptible to what I've been told. When I identify a true goal of my own, it often seems unworthy, impractical, too rebellious — various definitions of wrong.

So the big goal, which is probably too vague to be praised by the experts in such things, is to figure out what I actually want and do that. To care about what I actually want. Corollaries: authenticity, honesty, courage.

I know I am supposed to make goals measurable. I am supposed to assess whether I am progressing toward them. I need to make sure they're achievable and realistic. I used to make personal five-year plans. But I don't have the heart for that anymore. I can't look at my heart and ask if it's realistic. Sometimes, I can't look at my heart and make any sense of it at all.

So I write it down. Not because it's a goal, but because that's what I do.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Short term goals--sure. I’ve managed to stay busy and
productive all my life, working in a variety of situations. It’s what has made
my life the wild, eclectic trip it’s been. Stumbling and lurching from
situation to situation, career to career with nothing but a drive for something
new and doable (plus a hungry belly) to guide me through to the next
opportunity. Freedom has always included making my own way in the here and now.
I rarely had the luxury of making plans for the future.

Long term goals—not so much.Except for our marriage itself, vast changes in lifestyle have taken
place for Momma X and me because of our collective ability to not only think
out of the box, but to sniff out opportunity as it presents itself and act upon
that information. I’ve had the business cards printed before the interview, lied on resumes, learned something about the
interviewer before he/she knew
anything about me, and did virtually anything I thought might make me and my
‘brand’ stick out. Hell, everybody embellishes a resume, using whatever devices
to make their own qualifications appear to hit the nail on the head. It’s about
acting on opportunity.

In restaurants I wanted to work at, I would go and have
dinner a few times, get to know the menu and the owner. I’d hang out at an
interesting bar. Become a regular. When a position opened, they already knew
me. Often, I found out about a job just as it came up. Maybe I even heard
somebody was leaving before the fact.

I’ve always been leery of plans. Plans seldom if ever go as
scripted, considering the random quality of life itself, throwing curves and
monkey wrenches at our involvements with such capricious intensity. I’ve seen
too many plans come apart in situations where people have left themselves no
other choices. Not for me. Secure escape hatches with several options help me stay
alert and quick on my feet.

It’s a great perk to make one’s living doing something we
love. That’s basically what I’ve always done. Since I could never afford to court
hobbies on a level that I wanted to pursue them, it was necessary to turn my
hobbies into businesses. That’s how my cooking career began. Also my antique
business.

Of course that’s not to say all of my enterprises were
successes. Forget “Willy-Nilly Construction, Instruction, and Destruction
Company” or “Let Me Take You For a Ride”, (when I bought an old classic car and
advertised drives through the Wine Country) and “The Visiting Chef”, (which
actually led to my first restaurant job). And let’s not get into the snail
farming. Poor Momma X still has nightmares about that one!

Currently I have a collection of stories in the works with
an April 2015 target date. For now, that’s my most significant short-term focus.
Beyond that, I guess my only real goal for the next year is staying alive and
healthy. Heh. Come to think, that’s not much different than when I was younger!

Not that I ever tried that
hard to stay healthy. (See bio in ‘About Us’) Alive, yes. At least that goal
has been fulfilled—so far.

FLASH DADDYDaddy X

BEST LESBIAN EROTICA OF THE YEARSacchi Green

RENOVATIONS Annabeth Leong

COMING TOGETHER PRESENTS C. Sanchez-Garcia

Resurrection by Ashe Barker

500 years of history and a twist in the tale

UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON Jean Roberta

A new twist on King Arthur

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